He is the son of Arthur and Mrs. He is the leader of the Birmingham criminal gang, the Peaky Blinders and the patriarch of the Shelby Family. Thomas served in World War I with the rank of Sergeant Major and received medals for gallantry which he threw away in a canal after returning from the war. His experiences in World War I left him disillusioned and beset with ongoing nightmares, and he becomes determined to move his family up in the world so that the powers who had always mistreated them could no longer touch them.
One minute of everything at once, and anything before is nothing. Everything after, nothing. Nothing in comparison to that one minute. Thomas Michael Shelby was born in , to Arthur and Mrs. They also have Irish Traveller ancestry, this is because Polly mentioned that alongside Romani, they should not speak Shelta around Karl Thorne , which is the language spoken by Irish Travellers. It is also heavily implied that their father was a partial Irish Traveller.
While growing up in Small Heath, Birmingham , Thomas carried a razorblade and a screwdriver on him and would tell the other children in the area that he could lay curses, so they were afraid of him and didn't pick on or tease him because of it.
Thomas and his siblings would have to get their fathers beer from The Garrison. However, because they were so little, it would take two of them to carry one bucket back to their house.
Thomas would also fight with his brothers over cigarettes and one time, when Thomas was 9 and Arthur was 12, they got into a massive physical argument. Thomas pinned Arthur against the ground and began hitting him several times over the head, later winning the fight, although Thomas acknowledged that Arthur let him win. In , when the youngest Shelby sibling was still an infant, their mother became severely depressed and contemplated suicide. Their father was no help, so Charlie intervened and convinced her to go on the road, so she left Birmingham and travelled to Worcester.
